Things We Found in the Storm
by pagerunner
Summary: Carlos still has questions after Cecil's strange subway journey and even stranger return. What happens when he digs into them is not at all what he expected... no matter how intimately satisfying it might all be. Carlos/Cecil; follows directly on from Last Train Home (but posted separately due to ratings bump), also posted here.


Carlos doesn't sleep for what he's certain is hours, although in this town, at this time, it's probably impossible to guess how long anything lasts.

The apartment goes dark on its own. It sleepily turns off light by light as Cecil slumbers, and soon it's only the dim lamp on the sofa's side table illuminating anything. In that soft pool of yellowish light, Carlos watches the man in his arms, who's still resting heavy on his chest, and does his best to breathe.

_You need facts, _Cecil had said, and it's true. Cecil still feels so ordinary, so very human, and yet the further and stranger everything goes…

_What am I going to find if I run those tests on you? _he wonders, afraid even to whisper it aloud. _I've tried to put it off - tried to put off the questions - but this… the rest of the passengers were _changed_, Cecil. Thinned out. So strange. And you still feel like the man I know, the man I love, but dear God, what am I going to find if I look deeper? _

_What did they tell you you were? _

Cecil, still peacefully sleeping, provides no reply. Carlos squeezes his hand, studying the contrast of his skin against Cecil's. He can feel Cecil's pulse beating slow and steady, nearly see it beneath the delicate skin of his wrist. "Cecil," he whispers, before fading off to uncertainty and saying nothing more.

He almost can't help but imagine strange things now - like following the marks of Cecil's veins like a subway map, and wandering deep into their circuitous paths to find out whatever secrets are still hiding within.

He's still haunted by the idea of that subway, after all. Back in the car, Cecil had described something that… didn't sound like a subway at all, really. There were no turnstiles, no crowds or lines or the drone of announcements, no predictable station arrivals. It was just travel, onward and inward. Carlos keeps trying to picture it. Cecil had said that every time the doors opened - the doors of _whatever _it was he was actually riding (and Carlos suspected it was nothing like the dingy, rattling car that he was picturing) - Cecil could see an entirely different angle on the universe. Some new and mysterious moment in time: some fragment of understanding.

Here in the dark, all Carlos can see is a twisting tunnel leading to more and more questions. All of them, at this moment, are about Cecil. And when the doors finally start opening, Carlos starts seeing _him, _fractured into ever-changing forms against a familiar landscape. Some look like that old grayscale photograph he'd found, familiar but shifted out of time. Others are dark mirrors of reality, black-eyed and smiling far too wide. Some look hauntingly young, uncertain, on the verge of something - and others look like the man he knows, but alone, or aged, or simply _different_. He sees a few shades and shadows that are like nothing on earth. And it's all Cecil somehow, no matter how strange - but if Carlos tries to reach out for any of them, the doors simply close, and he's gone.

Frustrated, he keeps at it. Keeps riding. Keeps searching.

And at the last stop, the doors open to a room too clouded and dark to see, except for suggestions of a podium and distant, watching figures… and the creeping sense that he's taken one turn too far. The messenger child stands at the threshold, eerily pale against the darkness.

_You were only supposed to get him home, _the child says. It's like a dozen overlaid voices now, alarming in volume - but still, somehow, petulant. The girl's nearly pouting. Carlos, no matter how unnerved, can stand his ground against _that._

"Well, I did," he replies. It occurs belatedly that if he's talking to a figment of his own imagination, what he says next, reckless as it feels, is also terribly ironic. "The rest of this is my business."

_But he still belongs to the city. He was pledged._

Carlos has no idea what she means. More importantly: "I don't _care." _

_You will, _says the child.

Without giving him time for a rebuttal, she sweeps her hands together. Obeying the gesture, the doors slam shut -

- and at their crashing collision, loud as thunder, Carlos startles awake.

He's still on the couch, still in the apartment… but Cecil isn't there.

"Cecil?" he says groggily, sitting up. Reality takes a while to filter back in. His clothes are still rumpled from Cecil's presence, his leg's asleep from the weight, and on the table he can see two mugs - one empty, one filled with cold, untouched tea. Cecil's glasses are folded up there too, resting beside Carlos' own. But despite the evidence, Carlos is alone there. He rubs his eyes and swings his feet to the floor, thumping louder than he means to.

Somewhere in the distance, there's an answering sound. Perhaps it _is _thunder - a distant rumble, almost subsonic, making the whole building tremble. Overlying that is something more. It's rhythmic, almost melodic, but too faint to pinpoint - especially when his head's still dazed and aching like this. Still, it's almost like….

Carlos blinks through the dimness to see the nearest window. His breath catches.

"Oh," he says aloud.

The window's standing open. Cecil's there, sitting on the sill: one bare foot on the floor, the other on the fire escape. He has one hand outstretched to the rain.

_The last door's open, _Carlos thinks - perhaps irrationally, perhaps not. _Go to him._

Carlos toes off the shoes he's still wearing, untangles himself from the coat, and pads his way across the floor.

"Cecil," he says. That sound he'd heard is coming clearer with every raindrop that falls. "Is that…"

"Music," Cecil replies softly.

Carlos leans against the windowframe, feeling a quiet sort of awe. It rains so seldom here, and he's never heard it like this - entire riffs and phrases falling from the sky, splashing into drumbeats against the grate. "God, Cecil," he says, caught a little helplessly in wonder. "Is this _normal?" _

He looks quizzical. "Didn't you know? I've played it before."

Carlos stares at him. Then he gets it. "The weather reports." Cecil nods. "Why do I even ask…."

Smiling ruefully, he sits on the opposite side of the windowsill, mirroring Cecil's pose. The erratic symphony keeps splashing down, and the rain feels so good on his upturned face that for a while, he doesn't say anything else at all.

He doesn't open his eyes again, either, until Cecil says, "Did I frighten you tonight, Carlos?"

He bites his lip. He doesn't want to say it, but honesty wins out - prompted by the afterimages of everything he'd just dreamed. If it had been a dream at all. "Yes."

"It's not the first time, is it?"

"No."

For a long time Cecil's quiet again. His expression is guarded and a little strange. "I'm sorry."

Carlos leans back against the windowframe, warring with guilt and the impossible decision of what would be the right thing to say. He really has no idea. "It's not even your fault, Cecil. It's just…"

He feels Cecil's knee bump his, hears a tiny hum of either worry or encouragement.

"This _town," _he says at last, deflecting. He wants to reassure them both. "I can never get my footing here. And I mean - sometimes… sometimes it's not all awful. Sometimes it's beautiful. Sometimes it's _this." _

He casts a hand out at the rain, which dashes an arpeggio against his skin.

"But I need a constant, Cecil. Something that makes sense. And you…."

Their eyes meet. It's suddenly hard to breathe.

"You said you were afraid of me forgetting you. But if _you_ disappeared - actually disappeared - or _changed_… or… I don't know what I'd-"

He doesn't finish the word. Cecil's leaned forward and pulled him close, until their foreheads are touching and Carlos can feel the shaky _ssh… _that issues from Cecil's lips. Then Cecil kisses him, and everything else in the world stops.

Everything but the rainstorm, that is, which suddenly sounds like it's singing.

He's still not used to how _good _this feels. Cecil's mouth is so warm, his lips soft and tongue entirely too clever, and Carlos starts aching all over when he hears a soft moan rise from Cecil's throat. He tangles his fingers in Cecil's hair, holding him close as the kiss goes hotter and deeper.

When he stops to breathe, there's another rumble and a flicker of light, one that makes him stare at Cecil. For just an instant, he'd seen something else there….

Cecil breaks the moment by whispering his name. Then his hands, which had been bunched in Carlos' shirt, start undoing buttons.

"Cecil," he groans, his head tipping back. The rain's falling harder now, slanting across them both. Cecil has to peel the wet fabric back from Carlos' left shoulder. The touches and kisses that Cecil trails across his bared skin, though, make up for the chill in the air in spades.

"You don't know," Cecil murmurs, "how long I've been wanting this-"

He doesn't, not really. Carlos could count back to their last kiss in hours. But Cecil's been… away… and the tangle of hunger and uncertainty and relief and _yearning _in him is nearly tangible. He doesn't even want to admit how much of a turn-on this is. Cecil's all over him now, wresting the shirt the rest of the way off - the friction of it's a sweet, sudden burn - and then kissing him, touching him, making Carlos hiss when his hand brushes low.

"Inside," Cecil says, his voice thick. "We should… go inside…."

Carlos looks at him, then up at the sky, and says, "I have a better idea."

Cecil opens his mouth for a question. Carlos takes advantage and kisses him instead, full and open and a little bit filthy, stealing the words with his tongue until Cecil's left with simply a moan. Then he stands, drawing Cecil willingly with him - outside, onto the fire escape.

Lightning flickers distant on the horizon, illuminating Cecil's dilated eyes with violet.

"Carlos," he breathes. "What are you-"

Carlos hushes him with a finger to his lips, which works for the briefest of moments before Cecil's tongue darts out to taste. Carlos sucks in a breath. Then they're both moving, crashing back against the brick wall and making the entire scaffolding rattle.

Together with the sound of the rain, they're dangerously close to outdoing the thunder.

"Carlos," Cecil whispers, even while he helps get his own shirt off and drops the sodden fabric to the grate. "Someone is going to _see _us."

"So?" Carlos says, still reckless.

"There are… _municipal regulations, _Carlos. Lots of them. If we get caught-"

"What? They'll lock us up? Try to re-educate us? Didn't work last time." Carlos snaps out his own belt for emphasis. It catches Cecil's leg on the way, making him jump and gasp - and not in pain. Might be useful information later.

For now, he just has to get these damned clothes _off. _

"I don't care what the city thinks it can do," Carlos tells him, his voice hoarse. "I don't care what claim it thinks it has on you. I don't care what the neighbors say or even about this storm. I just want… to touch you…."

Cecil groans, and lets him. For a while. Then almost without warning, he surges forward into another kiss. When Carlos writhes against the wall, the skin across his shoulderblades scrapes on the rough bricks - a perfect, stinging counterpoint to the melting heat of Cecil against him. When their hips grind together, Cecil makes a sound that's absolutely unholy.

Then Carlos' hands slide up Cecil's body again, feeling the warmth of him and the play of muscles as he moves, the raindrops sliding down his bare skin. He finds himself following those same lines, blindly tracing out patterns and symbols until Cecil squirms and cries out and struggles to ask, "C… Carlos, what are you…"

"Feels like… you like it."

"I _do" _- and oh, does the press of his body ever agree - "but… something's _strange-_"

Cecil admitting _that _would be a first. Carlos forces himself to pause, and holds him back a little, trying to focus. When he finally sees what's happened, everything dissolves into shock.

Because all across Cecil's skin, as if revealed by the rain and Carlos' wandering fingertips, are the marks of indescribable tattoos.

Cecil looks as stunned as Carlos feels, but he says nothing. He just waits, trembling, as Carlos' fingers spread out again to touch his chest and arms - where the most detailed linework twines like cuffs around his wrists before stretching higher. The symbols are arcane and alchemical and all sorts of things he doesn't recognize, and Carlos wonders suddenly, madly, how far down they go.

Cecil's whispering his name through a strained throat when Carlos finally works Cecil's trousers off. Then Cecil stops being coherent about much of anything, because Carlos has turned and backed him against the wall this time. He doesn't understand what's happening, and some part of him is terrified. But this is still Cecil in his arms, _his_ Cecil - he knows that much; he's seen all the options - and he does _not _want to stop.

So he doesn't. Instead, he kisses the impossible marks twining up the curve of Cecil's neck, even while he curls one hand around Cecil's erection and begins to stroke.

The muffled sound of desire Cecil makes is so encouraging that all Carlos can do is continue.

They're alarmingly exposed up here, and the storm has only escalated, raining sound and sensation down upon them while Carlos works Cecil closer to the edge. The rain masks Cecil's voice only a little as his moans run from rich to ragged, and finally become helpless shouts, when Carlos' wrist twists _just _right and Cecil's hips jolt, his whole body shuddering with pleasure.

The storm echoes it, illuminating Cecil's face with a too-close flash of lightning. In that moment, Carlos can see _everything._ His eyes are squeezed shut, mouth slack and lower lip trembling… and as rain streaks down his forehead, a stylized, abstract eye symbol starts coming clear there, too, even as Carlos watches.

For a minute Carlos just holds on, supporting his weak-kneed lover while they both struggle to catch their breath. Then Cecil looks up from beneath a sudden fall of rain-matted hair. Carlos brushes the hair back and lightly touches his skin, tracing over the marks and _wondering_. That lasts until Cecil yanks his hand away, so roughly that Carlos can't tell if it's from anger or fear - but either way, he follows it by claiming Carlos' mouth again, whispering between desperate kisses that "we have… to get inside." And he's not wrong. The next crack of lightning comes only an instant before the thunder. Carlos helps him back over the windowsill and ducks inside himself, just before the sky _truly _opens into what's assuredly going to cause a tremendous flash flood. Carlos gapes at it - but not for long.

Cecil's inexorably drawing him away.

"Bed," he says hoarsely. Something about his tone makes Carlos' blood throb. He follows, and this time Cecil takes the reins, pushing him to the bed and proceeding to do such things that even the desperate questions in his head simply white out. Cecil's gotten disconcertingly good at that. And when he offers himself up at the end, Carlos - achingly close now, and wantinghim so, so much - is in absolutely no state to say no.

He comes not long after, hilted deep within Cecil's body and gasping out rough breaths against the scratched skin of his back. Between the scrapes and the shapes of another tattoo, the patterns left behind look strangely like the idea of wings.

Eventually things do go calm. Carlos keeps following those lines with kisses and fingertips until Cecil finally falls asleep. And eventually he drifts off, too - quietly, and unnoticed by anyone but the probable listening devices, or possibly the fading storm outside the window.

This time, he doesn't dream at all.

…

Over the next few days of getting settled again into life in Night Vale - while normality, such as it is, returns - Cecil notices a peculiar thing.

For all that's changed, and for all _he's _changed, no one else seems to notice the difference.

He's greeted normally at the store, addressed with the usual respect by his harried interns, and the latest missives from Station Management don't seem to indicate that they're aware of anything odd. Even his own reflection lies. When he goes to visit Koshekh, the cat meows with perhaps a _few _more overtones of demonic screeching than usual, but otherwise he and the kittens seem unbothered by Cecil's presence, and the mirror is showing him a completely ordinary image of himself. There are no strange symbols on his skin. No third eye in abstract form upon his forehead. He still hasn't the faintest clue what it looks like - only, thanks to Carlos tracing over the mark, what it _feels _like.

He experimentally scrubs at one arm with a paper towel until, worryingly, it bleeds, but although he can see the chafe marks in the mirror, the tattoos aren't there beneath.

He can still see them, though, if he simply looks down.

_I wasn't supposed to know about these, _he thinks.

He'd have no idea why, except that thanks to a few things he glimpsed on that subway ride… he can probably guess.

For the most part, he chooses not to.

He doesn't mention the tattoos to anyone else. Only Carlos - perceptive, inquisitive Carlos - knows. In fact, he's taking extra care with Cecil these days, which is both a touch annoying and tremendously endearing. When he nervously gears up to ask Cecil if he'd be willing to submit to a few medical tests, Cecil easily agrees - and he's not sure _why _Carlos is so tense about it, since as described it sounds like any other city-mandated physical exam, and of course he trusts Carlos to conduct it appropriately. He _is _a scientist, after all.

In the meantime, while waiting for the results, he gets back into the rhythm of things. If no one else - like, say, the City Council - has noticed his sudden change, there's not much sense in worrying about it.

The odd thing is, he's starting to like the tattoos.

For one thing, the designs are beautiful. They're _unnerving_, certainly, and some of them include runes he's quite sure were banned from bloodstone carvings two decades ago, so what they're doing on his _skin _he has no idea. Still, he likes the geometry. And sometimes when he touches them - or when Carlos does, as he does so often now - they tingle, not unpleasantly. Carlos' attentions to the markings can be almost unbearably sensuous.

And the more attention he lavishes on them, and for that matter on Cecil himself, the more the tattoos seem to… change.

It's subtle. First just a few little crosshatches seem altered, more curved than straight. Then an entire rune simply vanishes and is replaced by a stylized sun. One of the tattoos soon looks like a symbol he'd intended to get inked years ago, but was convinced not to, for reasons he's unclear about now. The memory's fuzzy. He wonders now if someone didn't want him meddling with what was, invisibly, already there.

The meddling is well under way now. He's experiencing an uncharacteristic flush of rebellion over it, because he doesn't intend to stop.

And it's not until the day Carlos calls him to the lab to discuss a test result - sounding tight-voiced, Cecil notices, but giving nothing away - that it happens.

He's on the way past old woman Josie's house, nodding absently to Erika and Erika out on the front lawn (one is trimming the shrubs; the other's doing something arcane to a jug of lemonade), when suddenly there's a rush of air, and another Erika's standing before him. It's the tallest angel, dark and vast and seemingly taking up all the available space in the world. Cecil swallows, feeling very small.

"Um," he says, not terribly intelligently.

The angel doesn't speak, merely gestures. Cecil gets the idea after a moment and holds out his arms, palms up. The angel studies his healing wound. Then two of Erika's hands grasp his. Cecil feels it like a full-body physical jolt, one that drives all the thoughts from his head and leaves him shocked and stammering. Then the angel lifts his chin, searching out _something _in his face. Cecil does his best to hold Erika's gaze. It's difficult. And terrifying.

He has the strangest idea that it's not his physical eyes, but the symbol inked _above_ them that Erika's staring into.

Then the angel makes one slow nod and withdraws.

It leaves Cecil disconcerted and briefly alone on the sidewalk - briefly, because Josie tromps up shortly thereafter. For such a small figure, she fills Erika's space with remarkable aplomb. She studies him too, then takes a gulp of lemonade from a cracked and mended coffee mug. Whatever Erika had done to it, it smells faintly of alcohol now.

She grins crookedly at him.

"Making progress, then? Erika just said so."

"I…." He casts about for a word. He notices, while he's rather literally flailing, that his arm is completely healed. "I suppose?"

"Good. And don't let all this worry your scientist friend. He still might, poor thing - that's his job - but." She coughs, and takes another sip. "Might want to ask him more about that job sometime, you know."

"I do," he says defensively, trying to gain some ground back. "Of course I ask him about his work. I've become very interested in science lately-"

"Not what I meant, dear. But… Erika's still watching out for you two. I think you'll be all right."

"I hope so," he says, more softly.

Josie pats his hand. He's gripped by a sudden idea then - one sparked by a theory Carlos had asked him about on the phone once, years ago now and not so very long at all. "Thank you, Jane," he says, as levelly as he can manage.

_That _actually surprises her. She stares for a while before grinning bright as the moon. In that moment he can recognize the beauty she once was, and really still is, no matter how much older she may be.

"Yes," she says. "You'll do just fine."

On that, she turns and lets the angels help her back to the house. One Erika lets her in; the other turns on the porch to face Cecil. He waves, feeling like it's only polite to do so. Erika does nothing but watch him go. Still, knowing an angel's keeping an eye out for him - or several eyes, possibly - is a little bit comforting. He'll have to tell Carlos about it when he gets there.

He hopes Carlos has good news for him, too.

Humming fragments of the music he heard in the storm, Cecil sets off again down the road, with the sigil of an angel's feather settling into place, unnoticed just yet, amongst the Council's eldritch bindings on his wrist.


End file.
